Popular entertainment media is often lambasted by some for its portrayal of anti-social and immoral content, yet the typical Hollywood blockbuster often serves to reinforce rather than violate social mores (cf. Klapper, 1960). For better or worse, popular tends to serve as a mirror of the culture from which it stems, and producers craft message to appease the needs and tastes of that culture (Gans, 1954; Straabhaur, 1991). Indeed, newer theorizing on media production (Tamborini, 2011) has suggested that aggregate audience moral foundations can influence the production process, and early research has found morally-based content differences between content designed for specific cultures (Mastro et al., 2011). At the same time, if we consider the increased fragmentation of today’s media audience in which media content is produced to appeal to smaller, more well-defined fan bases, we wonder about the portability of this media to other audiences. In short, can increasingly-niche media be expected to survive out of its niche, or will it be seen as at least distasteful or at most immoral?

1. Bowman, N. D. (2012, April). Immoral, or distasteful?
Audience fragmentation and media content. Panel
presentation at Southern States Communication
Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio.
Immoral, or
Distasteful?
Audience
fragmentation
and media
content
Nicholas David Bowman, WVU
Nicholas.Bowman@mail.wvu.edu
@bowmanspartan

2. Overview
• Tastes and Media Preference
• Cultural Proximity Hypothesis
– Culture as nationality
– Culture as morality
• Early evidence for morality as predictor
• Future Research
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3. Tastes and Media Preference
• Media content is produced to appeal to the “masses”
– Gans (1954; 1979) taste cultures
– Atkin (1984) learned expectations
– Stam (1990) social identity
– Zillmann (2000) morality subcultures
• Mass appeal usually requires an adherence to macro-
level socio-cultural norms
– Norm violations result in norm reinforcement (Klapper
1960; data from Tamborini et al., 2010)
– Production inline with dominant values (Mastro et al,
2012)
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4. Tastes and Media Preference
• Audience fragmentation has altered this process
– Highest rated show? M*A*S*H, 1983 (125M)
– Only five series since 2000 make the top 50, and only two
break 30M viewers
– Renewed focus on “1000 True Fans”
• Increased focus on international markets
– US media dominant (Hoskins, Mc Fayden & Finn, 1997)
– more chance for audience ≠ content…
– …but more chances for new audiences!
• Film: International Gross > Domestic Gross
• YouTube (largely) spans national boundaries
• Historically, we see “reverse media migration” (i.e. Beatles, reality TV)
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5. Cultural Proximity Hypothesis
• In general, we prefer “homegrown” content
(cf. Straubhaar, 1991) as it tends to be close to
our culture…
• …but what is culture?
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6. Culture as Nationality
• Culture is a function of socialization
• Even cultures with similar “Western” or
“individual” dimensions vary
– US (compared to Germany): Religion +, Welfare -,
Egalitarian -, Materialism +
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7. Culture as Morality
• Differences have roots in moral orientation
– Hofstede (2011) “collectively-constructed minds”
– Haidt et al (2004) examine the role of socialization
in making morality more or less salient
– Tamborini (2010) discusses one’s “non-mediated
cultural environment”
Authority
Harm/Care
Loyalty
Fairness
Purity
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8. Morality and Media Preference
Tamborini (2010)
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9. Morality and Media Preference
Bowman et al, (2011)
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10. Morality and Media Preference
Jöckel et al. (2011) A) Sig. ∆ B) Non- C) Random
High vs. Low random (lowest
(highest salience)
salience)
German
Yes (.002) Yes (21%) Yes (47%)
Digital Adolescents
Natives US
No (.118) No (54%) Yes (41%)
Adolescents
German
Digital Yes (<.001) Yes (24%) No (77%)
Elderly
Immigrants
US Elderly Yes (<.001) Yes (12%) Yes (39%)
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11. Morality and Media Preference
• Mastro et al. (2012; in press)
– Compared English-language soap opera with
Spanish-language telenovelas
– Significant patterns of content in line with
audience-specific cultural norms
Soap Opera Telenovelas English Character Latino Character
Fairness/Reciprocity Fairness/Reciprocity Fairness/Reciprocity _ Authority/Respect +
Violations Adherence
Care/Harm + Fairness/Reciprocity + Villains: Villains:
Older, upper-class Younger, middle-class
Ingroup/Loyalty + Authority/Respect +
Purity/Sanctity +
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12. Where do we go from here?
• Traditional cultural proximity foci has looked
at national media systems…
• …but the new mediascape might suggest
other ways of “grouping” audiences
• Considerations into morality/moral
portrayals key to understanding:
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13. Immoral, or Distasteful?
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14. Thank you!
• In progress research, so for information:
Nicholas David Bowman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Communication Studies
West Virginia University
Nicholas.Bowman@mail.wvu.edu
Twitter @bowmanspartan
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